Partners
by preposterousnotion
Summary: "Partners, being someone's partner, well, it suggests a lot more sex than we have".  10/Rose one-shot.


Partners

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from the BBC's Doctor Who

AN: My first Doctor Who fic! Which of course had to be 10th Doctor/Rose, because I love them, and this kind of thing has probably been written before, but can (probably) not be done enough times :) Comments very very welcome.

Ruby

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><p>"So what do you tell people about … us… about our situation… thingy?"<p>

Rose smirked, because here was a guy who could ramble on for centuries about physics and theories and the history of life, but was floundering in the deep end when it came for picking normal words to fit into normal conversations.

"I say we travel together- all over the place, then it's not so specific and I'm not actually lying".

He nodded once, looking down at their fingers entwined and their hands swinging between them as they walked slowly down the pavement.

"Huh. So what does that make us?"

She frowned.

"People who travel together? I dunno, what do you think it makes us?"

She was surprised when he answered, seeing as she hadn't properly answered herself, and she was expecting him to call her up on that immediately.

"Partners?"

She snorted. "Yeah- _no_".

"What's wrong with that?" He asked, sounding genuinely offended that she had so quickly disregarded her suggestion.

She smiled to herself at that, because so often it was the other way around.

"Partners, being someone's _partner_, well, it suggests a lot more sex than we have", she said bluntly, as they were reaching her cousin's house now, and she could soon lose his interest with him having to pretend to be fairly normal in the company.

"Oh?"

She said nothing in return, and she cursed her body's reaction to the mere arising of the subject, her cheeks burning in a blush.

"You're the one who said forever Rose", he said matter of factly, and she was still wondering what he meant by that, when she made small talk with her cousin and her new fiancé, and the various family members she hadn't seen for ages.

* * *

><p>"So that's your doctor then?"<p>

Rose turned immediately, only to find the Doctor had pulled up a chair so close to the fish tank, his nose was practically pressed up against the glass, and he was inspecting the inhabitants of the tank with awestruck interest.

She squashed the feeling of jealousy she suddenly felt for the blue tailed tetras.

"Yeah", she said distantly, tearing her eyes back to her aunt. "Yeah- he's my Doctor".

"He's a bit of alright isn't he Rose? Very suave".

Rose froze for a millisecond, bombarded with various freeze-frame memory pictures, of his annoying sexy hair in various states of disarry, of his ridiculously sexy glasses that he blatantly didn't need, just wearing them for effect, she supposed, and of his horribly handsome face with that disgustingly sexy grin he would flash at her…

He must have sensed her staring, or something, with those superior Time Lord senses of his that seemed totally oblivious to her very human emotions towards her alien.

He smiled innocently, and she wanted to hate him but knew she was so far opposite to hating him that it just wasn't possible.

"Yeah but we're just friends", she said quickly, and excused herself to the kitchen to get a drink of water.

* * *

><p>She slapped her hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming when he appeared behind her as she turned away from the tap, glass in hand.<p>

Then slapped him on the arm.

He pouted.

She glared.

"You told your Aunty Jean that we were just friends", he said, conversationally.

"How do you know..? Yeah- why?"

He waggled his eyebrows impatiently.

When she said nothing, his face fell slightly.

"Are we really just friends?"

"Well we're not partners", she said pointedly, "You had more sex with those stupid expensive fish than you do with me!"

He was taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered.

"It's not my fault that you, Rose Marion Tyler, are seemingly _unseducable_".

She gaped at him.

"_What_?"

He repeated himself, a smug grin at his wittiness.

"And how exactly?"

She pushed the glass of water onto the side, forgotten with the strangeness of the situation.

He shrugged.

"There are only so many times I can 'just have to clean the TARDIS', so that I can have my hair all messed up and wear those ridiculous glasses and then beam at you whenever I look up".

Her mouth was open, but no words would come out.

He shrugged again.

"I mean, admittedly, there is only so much seducing that can occur without actually touching you..."

Her eyes were as wide as saucers at the incredibly offhand way in which he was saying such things.

She stuttered for a moment, before she actually managed to from an understandable sentence.

"So you reckon you could_ seduce me_… if you could _touch me_..?"

He thought about this for a moment.

"Only if you approved", he replied. "That's the funny thing about the word 'forever'… it is funny isn't it?"

"… I have no idea what you are talking about", Rose croaked, her mind reeling.

"Well I think it's funny", he commented lightly, "Because it is perfectly viable to be friends forever… or, of course, I could have been completely mistaken in thinking that you were more leaning towards the, er, _bonded_ forever sort of idea… like Gallifreyan, yet with you, so only… better… anyway, I need to get some cake- I heard someone say something about banana cake, and…"

"Doctor", Rose said gently.

"Yup", he turned his head back to her, and he had a slightly manic grin in place, a grin she recognised as a 'we need to move out of this situation pronto, and I really thought I had it under control and am still going to pretend that I do even though I really don't'.

Yeah… the just friends thing was never really going to work.

Not for forever.

"How do I show you that I approve… and not of the just friends thing..?"

"Does that mean I'm allowed to touch you?" He asked brightly, hopefully, and she caught a tiny glimpse of a gaze from him that she'd never seen, a gaze that nearly made her gasp with its intensity.

"Are we really having this conversation? Is this… is this real?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, then asked, his voice hurt and disgruntled.

"Do you not want it to be real Rose?"

The breath she didn't realise she had been holding left her in a rush.

"I want it to be real so much it's too easy to convince myself it's not", she hissed fiercely. "You have no idea… you never have any idea… and now… _now…_"

There was a silence, and the talking noises of the family and friends in the lounge was muffled by the closed door separating them.

The Doctor took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry", he said heavily. "I've got no idea what I'm doing… there are no books for me to learn about this, and there's certainly never a convenient time to ask you for help…"

He paused. "That's what I'm doing, by the way".

"Asking me for help?" Rose questioned slowly.

"Please?" His puppy dog eyes melted away the last vestiges of doubt.

"Soyoureallythisisand… wow".

She swallowed and tried again.

"You want me to help you understand how to be more than just friends with a human?" She asked.

"No", he replied shortly, and her chest constricted heart-stoppingly, as she suddenly dreaded that perhaps it was all a big joke or something.

But he hadn't started laughing or ran off back to the TARDIS on their next big adventure.

He'd instead stepped forward, his hands warm and gentle on her shoulders.

"Rose, not 'a human'… _you_".

Her mouth formed 'oh' but she couldn't speak, not when he was meeting her eyes with that gaze again, the gaze she'd only just met but that was fast becoming her favourite.

He oh-so-slowly reached one hand up to his face, the fingertips curling and brushing softly against her cheek.

She gasped out loud at the sensation, which seemed not to come directly from his fingertips but caressing the entirety of her skin, and she was stumbling towards the pull of his body, the need for further contact, before she knew what was happening.

"What is that?" She asked breathlessly, in delighted wonder.

_And all that from just touching her cheek…_

Forever didn't seem long enough.

He reluctantly returned his hand to her shoulder.

"It's… it's how I feel for you", he said, "multiplied by your reciprocation… Is it too much? I can try to close it off, I don't really…"

"No", she said quickly. "No, please… I mean, as long as it feels like that for you".

He smiled.

"I'll show you", he murmured.

His hand slid over her shoulder, curling round the curve of her neck, thumb rubbing in small circles and she closed her eyes to the bombardment of heat and excitement, and want and lust and… _forever_.

"We should come to my cousin's anniversary parties more often", she muttered, and he chuckled slightly, before darting forward to push his lips onto hers.

She struggled to contain a whimper, her eyes flashing open to target _that hair_, that not-ginger, fantabulous, wild hair that her fingers tangled in, just as she had always longed to do, and tugged his mouth back to hers.

And screw building up their relationship, they'd been doing all that for ages.

She needed this now.

He made a delicious noise of surprise and desire in the back of his throat, his lack of control only lingering for a second, before he crushed his lips on hers, pliant yet demanding, fiercely passionate yet tenderly soft, his whole body shifting to encase hers against the kitchen cabinets.

It was the type of kiss she'd always imagined would accompany the victory of saving the world, again, the relief and celebration meshed in one beautiful expression of their appreciation of each other.

Except the world wasn't ending, they were just pressed up against each other in the small kitchen of her cousin's town house, and it was so much better than she had imagined, with the Doctor kissing and kissing her with a hunger that she'd never thought he would show for anything other than bananas.

He tugged her bottom lip between his teeth, before flicking out his tongue to sweep it over, probing into her mouth with his tongue, welcomed enthusiastically by her own, which was helpfully acting on instinct, as her mind and body were rendered useless by their alien connection which Rose was appreciating more and more every second.

But _he_ certainly felt human, reinstated as he moved impossibly closer to her arching body at her wanton moan he caught in his mouth.

"_Rose",_ he growled, his breath scorching in her ear, and Rose attempted to force her eyes open, a fire raging inside her, desperate even, for his fuel.

There was a pointed cough from behind him.

"Just friends my hat", Aunt Jean scoffed. "I wondered why you'd been in here so long".

"Your mum's just arrived Rose", she added, when neither the Doctor or Rose moved.

The Doctor grimaced and braced himself, with the realisation that he was quite literally handing Jackie Tyler a list of reasons for the present and the whole of the future to slap him.

Rose giggled, and hugged him close, burying her face in his chest, and wondering if maybe from now on, this meant she wouldn't be stretching the truth at all when she told people that the yes, the Doctor was her partner.

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><p>Please review :)<p> 


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